Civil War-inspired super hero face paint tutorial

Posted by Elizabeth Mackinney on Jun 07, 2016

Our family loves super hero movies. We wait for them to come out, and when they do, we go and cheer for the good guys. So when the newest Marvel movie Civil War came out, of course we got our tickets and ended up on the second row of a packed theatre. This is my tribute to Civil War, with a symbolic mask showing the rift between two of our favorite super heroes. (Hopefully they’ll get back together by the next movie.)

Begin by spritzing your Paradise gold face paint with water and adding a small amount of Mehron gold powder. Mix it in with your flat brush and paint it on half the face as shown below. Paradise gold is an excellent gold face paint, and you can do this design without the gold powder, but it won’t have nearly the metallic sheen that it has with the gold powder assisting it.

Load the same brush with some silver and blend it around the edge. Sponge a little on the forehead as well, blending it with the gold. Add Paradise black in a wedge shape below the cheek bone.

Using Paradise red and your flat brush, paint the shape of the Ironman helmet around the outer edge of the face. In the center of the forehead and chin, leave a jagged edge where the two masks will mesh together. Brush white over the eye in a horizontal rectangular shape.

On the other side of the face, add half of a silver A in the center of the forehead and paint a blue mask around it, pulling the blue across the gold and into the red here and there for a jagged line.

Outline the jagged edge and the areas on each mask which require it with black using a #2 or #3 round brush and either Diamond FX or Wolfe black, which is are excellent lining blacks. Global strong black is another great choice for this. Stay up on the tip of the brush for a slender line, but if you feel you need more control on the jagged lines, you can switch to the #1 round brush.

Sponge Paradise black around the outer edge of the design to add shading and depth. Paradise black is a softer matte black, which is why I use it for this purpose. Use the #5 round brush to add a super hero eyebrow to the Captain America side of the mask. Sponge TAG pearl sky blue just above the temple and below the eye on the Captain America side of the mask for a subtle highlight on the mask.

Add some fresh black Paradise black along the jagged line on the Ironman side of the mask. As you go, use a blending brush (a small filbert) to softly blend this into the mask on one side. Also add some Paradise black and blend in any areas you’d like to add shading, such as the lines of the Ironman mask

Add a seam which comes down through the Captain America mask.

Finally, add slender white highlights along the jagged line and to lines within the mask which require highlights.

If you’d like to add a more cartoon-like texture, use a dot stencil, black, and a sponge to add a bleed effect to the edge of your Captain America mask.